Time for winter!

At least that is what the calendar says. Right now, Holland feels more like November with its autumn storms. Driving rain and hurricane force winds are the start of 2012. But I am cleaning up my Christmas decorations and slowly but surely replacing them with winter decorations. My winter tree is set up and the Christmas tree gone from the living room. I will not repeat the photos of the winter tree as you can also still see it by clicking here.

I put out my quilt I called 'Winter Lace' on my table and decided to arrange my bristle brush trees. Placed on a glass cake stand with some dried Spanish moss and you have an instant winter woodland in your home.

Do you decorate after Christmas for winter? It helps chase away that cold feeling in a home when you take down all the Christmas decorations.

One job finished

There are many jobs still needing finished since we moved in a year ago. One of those was to finally get drapes for our bedroom. I had hung our old living room drapes for privacy the first day we moved in. I discovered that a Roman blind I had made for our previous house worked perfectly in one of the windows with just a little work on shortening it. The Roman blind is made from taupe silk. Now I really needed to give the drapes some attention. I sewed another blind for the smaller window as I still have some of the silk fabric. I finally decided to get drapes from IKEA as I have them in the guest room and really love them. They are heavy and have a nice floral pattern. I even have them in my living room but in dark brown.

 Photo after

The old drapes are a sand yellow and did not match the grey taupe walls at all but I kept putting off doing something about getting new drapes. They really looked dingy in the room also.

 Photo before

I am so pleased with these warm white drapes. They freshen up the room and work very well with the Roman blinds. I have to make one more blind for the door. I should have time over the weekend to get busy with it. I have to rework a blind I had for the previous house but should just have enough to finish this project off. 

 Photo after

Had I bought drapes again in a regular shop, I would have been investing into the 100s. The price for this project...70 euros for two sets of drapes and time/energy invested in reworking old folding blinds. I will have to buy some wood and wood slats for the last blind yet but I am really pleased with how this fit into my budget.